वेदों की प्राचीनता एवं काल-निर्णय / ओरायन (लोकमान्य बाल गंगाधर तिलक - खगोलीय वैदिक शोध)

240 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. physical phenomena, yet as their knowledge of the physical world was very limited in those days, they were not able to explain every Vedic myth or legend by this method. For example, out of the various legends about the Ashvins Yâska could explain only one by the Dawn theory, namely, that of the quail being rescued from the jaws of the wolf. This defect has now been partially removed by Western scholars, who, living in the more northern regions are familiar with the decay in the power of the sun during the cold season, or the eventual triumph of spring over winter, or the restoration of the decayed powers of the sun in summer. This phenomenon has, therefore, been used by them to explain the origin of certain Vedic myths, which have been left unexplained either by the Dawn or the Storm theory. Upto now, we have, thus, three theories for explaining the Vedic myths according to the Nairukta school of interpreta- tion; and it is necessary to describe them briefly before we proceed to show how they fail to account for all the incidents in the myths and legends to which they are applied. According to the Dawn theory, "the whole theogony and philosophy of the ancient world is centered in the Dawn, the mother of the bright gods, of the sun in his various aspects, of the morn, the day, the spring; herself the brilliant image and visage of immortality." Prof. Max Muller, in his Lec- tures on the Science of Language, further remarks* that "the dawn, which to us is a merely beautiful sight, was to the early gazers and thinkers the problem of all the problems. It was the unknown land from whence rose every day those bright em- blems of divine powers, which left in the mind of man the first impression and intimation of another world, of power above, of order and wisdom. What we simply call the sun-rise, brought before their eyes every day the riddle of all riddles, the riddle of existence. The days of their life sprang from that dark * See Lectures on the Science of Language, Vol. II, p. 545, ff.